Mercury
by pfeffi
Summary: The touching of minds is a dangerous game. / Or, five minds M'gann has touched, and one who has touched hers. — M'gann, SuperMartian.


**author's note: **What can I say? I'm fond of M'gann's character—both current and past. She reminds me (somewhat) of J'onn from JL/JL:U, with the way she handles her powers.

Anyway, this is my first leap into this fandom. I hope I do these characters some justice—no pun intended. Everything is set in Invasion. And no, not all these events happened (save #4, accredited to ep. 52 of JL). I took some creative liberties.

**disclaimer:** Young Justice does not belong to me, it belongs to its respective owner.

* * *

**Mercury**

—

#1: Most people don't understand when M'gann tells them that the bioship isn't just a ship—_it_ is a _she_ and _she_ has _feelings_.

More than just feelings, she has memories, she has a conscious. She is, and always has been, M'gann's dearest friend. When she needs it, her bioship's soothing touch has always been available to her. But the longer M'gann stays on Earth, the more her bioship is taken away from her, used on various missions in various places—sometimes so far that even their powerful mind link wavers.

It's lonely without her.

_I missed you,_ M'gann croons telepathically, touching the hull of her ship.

Her ship responds with a friendly, warm glow. M'gann smiles and flies into the ship's center, seating herself in the pilot's chair.

_Let's go out for a spin! You can tell me all about your mission with the BB gang. _

And so they fly. Her ship shows her flashes of the mission, when the three young heroes battled aliens and sent them hurrying away, and then flashes of the flight home—Blue Beetle arguing with himself, Beast Boy turning into a monkey and making fun of him, and Bumblebee rolling her eyes and wondering why she was stuck with both boys. M'gann laughs at the scenes, shares her ship's delight.

_I almost wish I could have gone, too! _She giggles.

Her ship doesn't respond. M'gann's laughter dies down.

Yes, it's lonely without her ship. But lately, it's been lonelier with her.

* * *

#2: She never wanted to repeat the experience of linking herself with the psychic madman—Psimon says, _Psimon says!_—but when she encounters him again and he threatens her, she knows she has no choice.

So their minds and wills meet midway in a hidden air hanger in Bialya, and she finds herself on par with him. While he has been recuperating from her last attack, she has been training, and she is prepared—for everything but his dirty tricks.

_Do these friends know who you are, little martian? Do they know what you are? Have they seen the monster? _He taunts, and she freezes.

Her mental foot slips; all it takes is one command and she's battling him in her own mind. _Get out, get out, _she pushes and screams, to no avail.

And Psimon, pitiless eyes dancing with mirth, strips her bare.

She stands, shakily, in her white bones and flesh, surrounded by darkness. His face appears before her, taunts, laughs, pulls away at her defenses one by one.

_This is wrong_, she cries, _wrong, wrong, wrong—I'm supposed to be stronger! I've been preparing, I—I should be in his mind! _

He laughs again. _Time for the end game, martian. Psimon says... die! _

M'gann, a hairsbreadth away from death, finds herself flying out of her mind's desert and back in the tangible world. Bumblebee gives her a grin, hovering over Psimon's fallen form. M'gann regains her composure and turns around to face Icicle Jr., who already knows he has lost.

On the flight home, M'gann finds cold sweat gathering at her neck, the events on the psychic plane replaying over and over—Psimon says, _Psimon says!_—and tries her hardest to force her fear away, replacing it with anger.

If he can do that to her, surely those on the enemy's team should be prepared to have the same done to them, right?

She asks her bioship later. The female conscious only responds with a noncommittal glow.

* * *

#3: The mind M'gann is the most reluctant to touch is Conner's.

It is also the mind that she fears the most. One would think the opposite, given their prior relationship, but having wronged him once, she hesitates to reach out again. He makes no moves to reach out to her either.

And it _hurts_, knowing that in her desperation she had done the unthinkable, knowing that she was the one who created the chasm between them. What hurts even more is seeing the pain on his face, seeing his misery and loneliness, and then having to try and keep her opposite façade up.

_We don't have to be like this, _she says one day, when they're trapped together. _We can still be friends, we can—_

_What you're doing is wrong,_ he interrupts. He glares at her fiercely. _You need to stop, M'gann. _

_Stop what, trying to be friends? _

_Stop destroying those aliens' minds! _

She's heard it before, but is taken aback nevertheless. _I'm doing what's right! I'm just trying to help the team! I'm trying to pro—_

_Enough, M'gann. _He interrupts, again, and his ferocity morphs into mourning. _I've heard enough_.

She still doesn't understand, but has to fight back the overwhelming urge to cry.

* * *

#4: Of all the minds on Earth, the one M'gann is the most comfortable with touching, with sharing, is her uncle's.

It's a given, she thinks, because they are family. They are both martians; their difference lying only in their color—she is white and he is green. The culture is still similar; while the white martians may have had a history of greater violence than the greens, the linking of minds and thoughts has always been a common trait amongst martian kind.

But J'onn and M'gann take it one step further. On the days when she visits his apartment to remind him to water his plants, to let him be the first to test her latest and greatest recipe, they sometimes sit on the sofa and delve into each other's mind. It is a sign of the ultimate trust. Often, J'onn opens his mind, and the two sit in the center of red dunes and vastness—a testament to Mars.

On one such day, after the return of the Justice League's founding members from Rimbor, they sit and talk.

_Is it wrong? Is it really that wrong? _She asks.

He already knows what she's asking about.

He doesn't turn to look at her; a strange emotion clouds his eyes, a lingering touch of regret and sadness. The sky above them twists and opens into a gaping hole. Colors and silhouettes seep in first, then voices. He is replaying a memory.

She sees J'onn, Martian Manhunter, and a man not unlike Hawkman. Thanagarian. Proud. Unyielding. The man refuses to part with any information he has—"I would sooner choke on your bones!"—but the League needs the information, and needs it _now_. J'onn understands this and, taking a deep breath, forces his way into the man's mind.

Thanagarian minds, and this M'gann knows, are strong. Every soldier has mental walls protecting their secrets. In the case of this Thanagarian, his security system comes in the form of ravens, and they rain down on J'onn bitterly. Claw marks decorate J'onn's face as he flies further, further, into the deepest recesses of the Thanagarian's mind and reaches the center: a bowl of flames—the very flames that keep the soldier living, breathing, thinking.

J'onn tips the bowl over.

The Thanagarian screams. His physical body slumps, his mental body burns. The violation of his mind is too much for his mortal structure; he does not awaken again for a long time.

When the scene fades, M'gann is numb.

_Whether it is wrong or not, I cannot answer._ J'onn says after a length. _But I can say with certainty that you are my niece, and I will support you, no matter what you choose. _

* * *

#5: After the first two times of breaking and entering into the Kroloteans' minds, M'gann has a decent enough understanding to be able to force her way into the third in a gentler, almost kinder manner. It's still inevitable that the little, green alien's mind will go numb—for however long—but she is able to lengthen the amount of time he has before he slips.

The two of them sit in his mind. When she first enters, she expects it to look like the others that she has seen: a barren cityscape, filled with (stolen) technology that beeps and hums. Shivers travel up her spine when she finds that is not the case. This one's mind is beautiful and lush, and there is warmth.

_You do this much?_ The Krolotean asks, his language, not her translation, broken.

_More so now,_ she replies.

He stares at her for a long moment, and then drops his head. _Thank you_, he says.

_Thank you? For what?_

_When broken, I go home_. The Krolotean closes his eyes, heaves a sigh. _I tired. _

_But, you won't be able to—to do anything!_

He nods. _You right_.

_How can you—how can you thank me for that? Why aren't you fighting me—why aren't you hating me, like the others?_

_I not angry. I not sad. I understand. _He responds. _You not bad person. I not bad person. We just persons, do what must to protect. I understand. _His strange, dry lips crack into something of a smile, and he repeats: _I understand._

_Wait—_ She starts, and then watches, horrified, as he shakes his head and his eyes lose their hue.

The color of his mind's world dulls. She reaches out, she tries to touch him, tries to _save_ him, and one eye-blink later she is sitting on a cold, steel chair in the center of a holding cell. Her eyes widen, her heart clenches furiously in her chest—she feels ill.

M'gann bolts out of the room and doesn't look back, for fear that the Krolotean's empty shell will see her tears.

* * *

#6: M'gann stops touching minds and doesn't reach out again, to anyone, in the aftermath. After it is revealed that Artemis' death was faked, after Kaldur and Nightwing come clean, and after La'gaan decides to return to Poseidonis to recover from his ordeal at the hands of Black Manta, effectively breaking off his relationship with his "angelfish."

With her uncle and bioship away on a mission, La'gaan gone, and Garfield unable to understand, M'gann finds herself a very broken, broken girl who has made one too many mistakes and is very much alone.

She locks herself in her room and doesn't come out for days.

It's on the eighth day of hiding that Garfield decides—officially—that he can take no more of his sister acting like a wraith and goes to get help. M'gann figures he's gone to get Black Canary, the self-proclaimed team counselor. _Let her come_, she thinks, _let her come and see the hopelessness, the things I've done. _

She doesn't expect Conner to knock on (and nearly break) her door.

They stare at each other for a very long time. For once, there is more pain in her eyes than in his. He notices. With careful hesitation, Conner reaches out—with his mind.

M'gann feels his touch. He doesn't have powers of telepathy, not the way she does, but he searches for her in the only way he knows how: through his thoughts. When he brushes upon shared memories, when he calls her name, she links them together. She feels his hurt, the pain of betrayal, sorrow, but she also feels sympathy, traces of a love not-quite-forgotten.

The tears gather before she can stop them. The next thing she knows, she's crying into her hands and there are sure to be tear stains on the bed sheets.

_I'm sorry_, her mind whispers, _I'm so sorry_.

His expression eases. He sits down on her bed and replies; _I know_.

She looks at him with her woeful, mourning eyes and he casts her the smallest of smiles, just enough to alleviate some of her pain. He leans back on his hands, stares at the ceiling, waits. She waits too, for a moment, dries her eyes, and then slides her hand towards his and lets their fingers touch.

He doesn't move away.

And somewhere in between the silence and the heartbreakingly gentle touch of his mind against hers, she realizes that maybe—just maybe—mistakes can be forgiven, and this isn't the end, just another beginning.

—

_fin._


End file.
